DTLA's streetcar got a 73% yes vote from residents living within a three-block radius of the proposed route, which would be paid for by property owners in that same radius. The rationale is that these property owners will see an increase in the value of their property as a result of the increased access the streetcar brings, and that they are likely to pass it on to renters.

This new parcel tax is expected to fund about half of the $125 million cost of the streetcar, with the remainder to be covered by federal funding, which has not yet been secured. Construction is expected to begin next year. The streetcar will loop through downtown seven days a week 18 hours a day.

Read more on blogdowntown.com.

Streetsblog notes that the Mayor's Office released a report last month (who knew?) assessing the city's progress toward its transportation goals and pointing out that "From day one, building a 21st Century transportation system was a number one priority." The city gets decent grades on performance measures ranging from jobs created through transportation investments to miles of bikeways installed, miles of streets repaired, and length of transit projects in miles.

Mayor Villaraigosa has distinguished himself in the transportation arena, ending up in the national spotlight as a result, and a front-runner for U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary. The Measure R-funded public transportation system will be a monumental legacy.

Read more on Streetsblog, where you can download a copy of the report.

(Eds Note: Measure J ended up with 66.11% of the vote.)

Painful in LA County and even more so in Alameda County. The final LA County vote count — including all outstanding ballots — is to be tallied on Friday. Meantime the drumbeat is starting for a north-south campaign to reduce the voter threshold to 55%. Stay tuned.

Read about Measure J in the LA Times.

Read about Measure B1 on KQED’s website.

 

Mayor Villaraigosa continues to implement his vision of a more transit-oriented Los Angeles, this week announcing creation of a TOD Corridors Cabinet to ensure the coordination and collaboration of eight city departments with a focus on TOD. Move LA will stage the first public meeting of the Cabinet before an audience at Union Station on January 31, and the mayor, mayoral candidates and the leadership of the California Legislature will be part of the show.

Move LA’s Denny Zane and Gloria Ohland were quoted in a Streetsblog story about the mayor’s announcement. Denny Zane said: ”Thanks to voter approval of Measure R in 2008, Los Angeles, both city and county, are on the verge of a transit transformation. Move L.A. applauds Mayor Villaraigosa’s initiative . . .

Added Gloria: “The TOD Corridors Cabinet is a very sophisticated 21st century approach, a new work paradigm that’s all about cooperation and coordination whereas the 20th century was about working in silos, often at cross purposes. For example, LA DOT will widen streets around stations to mitigate projected traffic increases, while Metro spends money trying to make station areas more walkable . . ."

Read the mayor's Executive Order regarding the TOD Cabinet on Streetsblog.

The U.S. Department of Transportation was formed just a decade after the Interstate Highway System would completely change how Americans travel and where they live, “and highway building has been the primary focus ever since,” notes David Goldberg of Transportation for America in a story on theatlanticcities.com.

But the transportation issues of the 21st century will be less about building highways and more about building transit and multi-modal options to bike and walk. Transportation policy going won’t just be about moving people as far and as fast as possible, but about leveraging transportation in service of economic opportunity and livable communities.

And who could help the agency modernize its mission better than a mayor, asks writer Emily Badger. And, she implies, which mayor would be better suited than LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa?

On theatlanticcities.com.

A new study of 524 children in California finds that children living in homes exposed to the highest levels of traffic-related pollution were three times as likely to have autism. Study author Heather Volk of the University of Southern California says that while a lot of research to date has focused on genetic risk factors for autism, "In the last few years, we really have begun to have additional efforts looking at environmental risk factors for autism. It’s increasingly likely that it’s a combination of [the two].” The study was published in The Archives of General Psychiatry.

Volk and her colleagues were following up on earlier research that found an association between autism and living near a freeway. In this latest study, instead of using freeway proximity as a proxy for pollution, they modeled individual exposure using historic meteorological and traffic data on roads of all kinds – freeways, state highways, arterials and collector roads – within 5 kilometers of the child’s home. They concluded the association couldn't be explained by demographic or socioeconomic factors.

Read more on theatlanticcities.com.

 

The votes are all in and Alameda County's Measure B1, which would have funded roads, transit, bikes and TOD, loses. It would have made Alameda County the first in Northern CA to levy a full one-cent sales tax for transportation.

Read it in the Contra Costa Times.

Governing magazine says LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa "tops just about everyone's list of possible U.S. DOT secretaries." Governing lists 16 contenders, including NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan as well as Congressman Earl Blumenauer from Portland, OR.

Read it in Governing.

Steve Dubner and Eric Morris of Freakonomics fame made the point in a recent NPR/Marketplace pitch that the per-passenger energy consumption of cars is lower than that of transit . . . Right. Because here's the rub: Buses, for example, are underutilized, and carry an average of just 10 passengers, while the average American car carries 1.6, which means a bus requires the expenditure of 20 percent more energy. Trains are slightly better than cars, requiring roughly two-thirds the energy per passenger.

Angie Schmitt takes Dubner and Morris to task on Streetsblog, pointing out that, among other things, they miss the point that transit helps create places where people drive less, walk and bike more, and live in much more energy and water-efficient homes . . .

Read/hear about it on NPR's Marketplace or on Streetsblog.

 

(Note: Measure J ended up with 66.11% of the vote.)

Steve Hymon reports on The Source that Measure J has crossed the 65 percent threshold but is still 1.59 percentage points away from passage. As of Friday, there were still 340,684 votes to be counted, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar’s latest news release. In order for J to pass, more than 78 percent of the remaining votes (if all cast a vote for or against Measure J, which is doubtful), would have to be "yes" votes.

That's possible but unlikely, Hymon notes, adding that it will be interesting to see "if Measure J can stay above 65 percent or perhaps climb within one percentage point of approval. For that to happen, the remaining votes likely need to come from the more central parts of the county, where support for J was the strongest."

See the results by map and spreadsheet here.